


Stasis

by Zatnikatel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 19:53:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1097961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zatnikatel/pseuds/Zatnikatel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <b>Spoilers up to and including 9.09</b>
</p>
    </blockquote>





	Stasis

**Author's Note:**

> **Spoilers up to and including 9.09**

"It's my fault." 

Cas slides his eyes away from what is left of the prophet's, from the smoke wisping lazily up from charred flesh.

Dean hasn't moved since he arrived, one single second after his prayer screamed out across miles and Cas took wing. His back is pressed up against the wall, his knees bent and his arms hugging their way around his legs as if he is freezing cold. He watches Cas and there is hope like hunger in his expression, because he is starving for this to be made right. "Can you fix him?" he mutters. 

The place smells of burned meat, the stench of it thick and acrid on the air. _Like Hell_ , Cas thinks suddenly, and they are breathing in the smell of despair, suffering, and death. "No," he says. "I can't." 

"Can't or won't?" 

It isn't a question, it's an accusation, spat harshly, Dean's eyes gone hard now even if his lower lip is trembling. 

Cas shrugs off his suit jacket, bends to drape it over Kevin Tran's body, and the swollen, black recrimination that seeps from his empty sockets. "Can't," he says quietly. "This grace I stole – it's mal'akh." He glances back over his shoulder, elaborates, "The lower orders… a messenger. Not enough to give life." 

He can see Dean's thought process, devious and calculating, a line of concentration forming between his brows just before his face comes alive, his eyes gleaming. 

"What if we summoned a bunch more of you guys, some suits with more juice, what if you—"

"No." 

It whipcracks out of Cas on the recall of opening himself up to his brother's grace, how it felt as it seared through him and lit him from inside, muting the soul Metatron gifted him with, snuffing out his humanity as surely as the angel wearing Sam Winchester snuffed out Kevin Tran's life. _Power_ , and Cas feels it now, curling and coiling though him, the rush tantalizing, just like the souls he tapped into. He craves more, just like he did then, and the shame of his craving cuts deep. He pushes it back down, uses it to plug the jagged wounds in his memory, makes his position known again. "I won't." 

Dean's excitement fades into gaped disbelief. "Won't?" 

"There's no point, Dean." 

It isn't a lie, even if it serves as an excuse. Cas has done this himself, cauterized the very essence of his own brothers and sisters from existence, gazed into their light as it blazed supernova and died at his ferocious, Godlike hand. "There is nothing to bring back," he clarifies. "His soul, it would have been – _ended_. As if it were never here. I'm sorry." 

Dean's face crumples, color rising in his cheeks. "Your kind are monsters," he chokes out. 

"Yes. We are." 

Cas straightens up and moves it along, his hand going automatically to his jaw, fingertips rubbing along the line of it by force of habit. His eyes are already scanning the room for wood, chairs, tables, _fuel_. "Is there a place we can burn him?" he asks. "Is there a plot of land outside? I don't recall from before. I wasn't here long enough." 

He doesn't mean the last to sound as sharp as it does, and it is effective, he sees the barely perceptible wince that crosses Dean's face. He shrugs. "Perhaps it was best that I wasn't here. I couldn't have defended myself." 

Dean swallows. "He saved you, brought you back after that reaper killed you. If it weren't for him, I'd have had to burn you too." 

It's stronger, firm even, maybe it's Dean telling himself that what he has done was worth it, for that at least. Cas can give him it, though he knows that it's cold comfort, and he nods his head, the motion small but meaningful. 

The pine burns fast and energetic, a wall of sweltering heat rising to meet them, and the rising sparks of the pyre are bright in the gloom of dusk. Now the smell is of creosote, the pepper and fragrant spice of green wood, and by morning all that will be left of Kevin Tran is embers glowing crimson in a bed of soft, flaky ash. 

Cas watches the flames as they lick tenderly at the swathed corpse, shimmying this way and that. Their motion is oddly soothing, makes him think of the cobwebs on the ceiling of the supply closet he passed the nights in until the Rit Zien tracked him down, of how he would point the beam of his flashlight up towards them and watch the gauzy threads waft in the draft as he drifted into sleep. 

Dean's hands are shoved deep into his pockets, and the fire dances in his eyes but his jaw is slack, his mouth hanging open. He blinks slowly, as if he is meditating, and every few moments he shivers. "It's my fault," he repeats, barely audible, after some time has passed. "Sam didn't want to come back, and I fucked with the balance when I let that thing do it." His speech falters when he goes on. "This is payback. There's always payback when you fuck with the balance, when you change what's meant to be… and look at all this shit, years of it, because of us." 

It's the truth, it's their reality. Cas knows this in ways he can never share, in his own bloody, vicious, ruthless history, and the memory of it has him abruptly shaky with something he would call adrenaline-fueled panic were he still human. He grits his teeth, wills it away, but Dean is right there, head canted and tone earnest. 

"No more. Promise me, Cas. No one else suffers because we mess with the balance. From now on, what's dead stays dead, no matter what. Promise me Cas. Swear it to me." 

The words have a note of conviction that is genuine and heartfelt, because Dean is right. Cas knows this too, but the acknowledgment comes with a sense of foreboding, with _fear_ , real and raw. Cas wheezes it out dryly, "I swear," and then he changes the subject. "You should sleep. I don't need to, not now. I'll wait." 

A muscle in Dean's cheek spasms. "Until there isn't enough left for any passing demon to haul him off there for happy fun times." 

There is little point in evasion, so Cas is blunt. "For that, or sorcery. Old magic. The bones of a prophet are powerful medicine, and his entrails could be used to—"

"He was a kid," bursts out of Dean. "A kid. Cut the prophet crap. Don't tell me he's just bones, don't call him _entrails_. He was a kid. He was a _kid_. In my care, looking to me to keep him safe." 

He steps away from Cas, paces left then right, fingers strumming the air and then clenching. "You cold fucking bastard," he snaps, and anger turns his body whipcord-tense, his mouth thin and cruel. "You look at him, and you don't see a kid you're supposed to be looking out for? All you see is what he's good for, how useful he is? Did you forget what it was like to be human? Did you forget what it was like to give a damn about anyone else?" He ends on a small, incoherent sound, eyes gone wide and appalled, spins on the spot, shoulders rounding and hunching as he folds in on himself. 

Cas waits a short while, until the sounds, the _distress_ , are stifled. "I haven't forgotten," he whispers. "How fragile you are, how transient too… like ghosts, here and gone. But you're not talking about me." 

Dean sobs once, a low whine and a sucked-in gulp of air, before he walks away, back towards the hill that conceals the bunker. 

Cas knew Dean would come to him in the night, like he did that first time in Purgatory. 

He stands in the doorway to the library, bare-chested and swaying. "My head feels heavy," he slurs, and his voice is dull, his eyes too, the anguish muted by his exhaustion. "It feels heavy with everything that's in it. But it feels empty too." 

Cas puts down his book. "We'll find Sam," he starts. "We'll put this right—"

"Don't." Dean puts a hand up. "I can't talk about that." 

He hesitates a moment, takes a deep breath, then weaves an unsteady path to the couch where Cas is sitting. He sinks to his knees there on the rug, between Cas's legs, his hand gripping Cas's thigh, fingers kneading the muscle. "Please," he says, and his exhale is whiskey-sour. "Cas. Please." 

He had muttered those words in that other place, his mouth hot and damp on Cas's throat, his passion fierce, frantic and needy as he drove himself in deep and shuddered in Cas's arms. But that was then, a world away, and this is now. "I don't know what you want from me," Cas lies, and he puts his hand on Dean's, stilling the convulsive flex of his knuckles. 

Dean huffs out a hurt breath, and his other hand comes up to cover his eyes. "Please. Just help me see something that isn't him lying there and staring at me with no fucking eyes." He barks out a rough, bitter laugh then. "It's my fault, I know. I upset the balance, because I never fucking learn, and now Kevin is screwed. He said that to me, can you believe it? I told him, _trust me_ , and you know what he said? _I always end up screwed when I trust you_. And five minutes later he was lying there staring at me with his no fucking eyes burned out of his skull." 

The words are raw, the recrimination in them savage, the tableaux they paint horrifying, and Dean must feel how Cas tenses under his palm, because he sags back onto his haunches, head lolling. 

_Like Stull_ Cas remembers abstractedly. _I found him like this at Stull_.

"You're judging me," Dean mumbles. "Still think I deserve to be saved?" 

_Always_ , Cas thinks. _You are infuriating, rash, foolish, obsessive, violent, distrustful. You are impure. And you are still the brightest soul I ever saw_. 

He doesn't say it. 

"I'm not judging you," he murmurs instead, and he curls his fingers around Dean's. "Who am I to judge, after what I've done? But I can't absolve you either. And this, what you want… it won't help you feel better. It won't—"

"I don't want to feel better," Dean cuts in, an aggressive hiss. "I don't deserve to feel better. Just – please. If I ever did one good thing in my life, do this for me. Take my mind off him looking at me. Just for a while. _Please_."

He looms up again, sudden, close enough so that Cas can feel the heat coming off him. And Cas's loneliness, that old separateness that settled back into him as the grace he stole washed over him, might have been almost a relief because it is so mundane and _known_ , unlike humanity, might even have been comforting in its familiarity, but here is _Dean_ , just inches away, and the warm body pressing up against him is a catalyst for the need Cas has always felt for this soul. 

He knows this isn't the time to be reaching out to rest his fingers on Dean's chest, to take note of the pulse of Dean's heart, before sliding his hand up to the side of Dean's neck and brushing his thumb across the bolt of Dean's jaw. But he can't help himself because his skin is suddenly prickling as Dean leans in, eyes half-lidded, his hands already deft at Cas's belt and his tongue stabbing in between Cas's lips and teeth. The wet, agile slide of it ignites something inside Cas, a painful self-awareness that lights up the difference between the aloofness of his renewed state of grace and what he is feeling now – _passion_ , acute and burning, and how could that elemental force that courses so coldly through him ever compare to giving himself up to somebody who knows all of him? And he does now, clamping his hands to Dean's head along to an answering groan, and Dean pushing and grinding against him. 

This is primitive, it's lust, it almost paralyzes Cas even as it sends him frenzied, his cock rearing up violently as it fills. Hands rip and tear at fabric, his shirt is gone, he is naked, they both are, and Cas doesn't know exactly when that happened, he only knows Dean's hands at the nape of his neck before they move down, to work the muscles of his shoulders and the vestigial wings he conceals there. They are on the floor, and Cas can't remember when that happened either, all he can focus on is relearning the contours of the body under him as Dean moans and thrashes, any control he had gone already. Cas maps his flesh and the fragile bones under it, licking his way across its landscape, biting his way down, _down_ , to sharp hips and tensing thighs, sprawled open and inviting, Dean's erection straining up, thick and flushed, eager to be touched. Cas closes his mouth around its smoothness, can already taste salt at the tip, and his fingers tease at Dean's sac, where his balls twitch out arousal inside velvety skin. He feels the hard dig and twist of Dean's fingers in his hair, Dean's cock surging and heating to boiling point on his tongue as he suckles and slaps at it, hears Dean's sharp cries as he flexes his throat to milk him. He senses the moment when Dean starts to lose himself in the feeling, his sounds strangled and bitten off, his hips jerking and thrusting as it deepens, and then he is swallowing the saline flood down as it washes out, Dean's sounds gone hoarse. 

And Cas still needs, he is brutally hard, rolling Dean over onto his belly there on the rug and covering him again, cock nudging into the cleft of Dean's ass, the heat and friction dizzying. But not yet, as Cas nips his way along the bony path that leads to Dean's center, swiping his tongue down and around, spearing him there, licking him ripe and open, while muffled moans pour out of Dean. A finger too, pushing in alongside his tongue, and Dean pushes back against Cas, soft whimpers evolving into staccato yelps as Cas pulls out and eases two fingers in now, to the knuckles, delving deep and twisting, and, "More," Dean sobs out. "Jesus. _More_." 

_Yes, now_ , and the dome of his cock is bulging prominent and slippery with his own approaching release as Cas lines himself up and presses in, past the ringed barrier that first pushes back and then pops open around him, Dean letting out a hoarse whine as he succumbs. Cas rolls his hips to embed himself further before pulling back, and Dean grips him tight inside, the snug, flexing heat of him sending irresistible desire spiking electric through Cas's every nerve. He groans, low and harsh, and when he pulls out and slams back in again, all the way to the root, Dean shouts and bucks against him. Cas is coming before he even realizes, a lightning bolt scorching out of him as Dean clenches around him, and he rides the pleasure selfishly, driving himself in deeper as Dean's fist pounds at the floor in sync with each thrust. 

And he is done then, slumping, listening to Dean's ragged panting, and tasting the sweat at Dean's nape. 

After how long Cas doesn't know, Dean shifts under him, and Cas pushes up onto his hands while Dean rolls over, before settling back down. Dean's arm drapes across him, his fingers idly tracing the notches of Cas's spine. 

This peace can't last, Cas knows. 

"Cas, that grace you stole, you said it can't give life," Dean broaches after several minutes. 

When Cas lifts his head, Dean's eyes are shuttered, his expression composed. His tone is flat as he continues, but even without inflection, the words are implacable and damning. "Can it give death? Without you having to tap into any more angels?" 

"It can," Cas tells him. 

"Can you track that angel?" 

Cas hesitates for a bare second. "I can." 

Dean sighs, and his eyes fall closed as Cas lays his head back down where he can hear Dean's heartbeat, steady and reassuring. 

"Will you leave again?" Dean whispers. 

"When someone saves you, you are theirs until they release you," Cas breathes into his skin. 

"We've saved each other," Dean answers. "Don't go." 

Cas misjudges, stumbles, and it is enough. 

They are fast and effective, they have Cas pinned down as they drag Dean away from him, yelling and kicking. 

They fling Dean to the ground, so hard that Cas hears the air puff out of his lungs. They drag him upright, throw him with enough force that Cas hears the crunch of his skull and the wet, choking rattle he makes as he hits the wall before sprawling, hand outstretched towards Cas, eyes staring lifeless, red blossoming at his crown. 

Cas's world turns to blinding white static for a fraction of a breath before he erupts, the rising cry of his rage ringing shrill in his own ears as he tears them apart, blade furious, swallowing their grace as they explode into blue light. 

_I swear_ , Cas had croaked out in the dark as Kevin Tran burned. 

The power is intoxicating, it flares through Cas as he knits cracked bone and torn flesh back together, sparks life through lax heart muscle. 

Dean gasps in his arms. 


End file.
